Lost data installing KDE Neon. Is data recovery at all posible?

robvazdom

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Hello everyone,
I've made a huge mistake.
So first of all, I have no backups. I neglected making them and I have definitely learned my lesson. Just to get it out of the way.

I was trying to install KDE Neon on my drive, which has three partitions. My Kubuntu install, Windows, and an empty one. I wanted to install KDE Neon as I the audio broke on Kubuntu and I couldn't get it to work, so I decided to switch to KDE Neon. I clicked on the option to overwrite my Kubuntu installation, and it started overwriting the partition, when I thought- "wait. I never told it to preserve my /home folder" So I cancelled the installation. It gave me a message akin to "are you sure you want to quit? all changes will be lost". So I quit and installed KDE Neon on my empty partition in order to save my data on another drive so I could migrate it. When I rebooted, I found I was unable to boot into Kubuntu, and when I booted into Neon, I was unable to see any files on the Kubuntu partition except for the lost and found directory. I am now booted from a Live Ubuntu USB and Gparted reports that my Kubuntu drive, which had over 220 GB of data, only has 8 GB of data.

I tried GParted rescue, told it the start and end sectors, and it returned nothing.

I don't have a lot of data that I want to recover. It's mostly LibreOffice documents that I'd like to get back, but they're important to me. Is there anything I can do myself? I assume that since it's partitioned off it hasn't been physically overwritten by anything else, since I stopped the installation as soon as it began, but I have no idea how to recover my data. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated, and thanks in advance.
 


Here's what I did: I clicked on replace partition and overwrote sda3. Immediately stopped the installation, but I don't remember the last step completed. It *did* say that all changes would be lost :(
 

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G'day @robvazdom and welcome to linux.org :)

You could try Christophe Grenier's Testdisk. Christophe is CGSecurity, and he produces TestDisk and PhotoRec for recovery purposes.

Google up

testdisk

and have a read and proceed from there.

TestDisk is cross-platform (Windows, Linux, MacOS) so depending on whether you think you would prefer to use it from Windows or from KDE Neon, you could download the appropriate software.

It has both a simple scan and a deep scan, the deep scan can take hours so choose the most stable environment you have available. I am unsure if the Windows version will detect the EXT4 format of Linux.

I have not used it for a few years (no need, because I use Timeshift extensively) so I may not be able to help much further.

Good luck

Wizard
 
I have just conducted a search on my KDE Neon and TestDisk is in your Repositories, so if you wish to install it on KDE Neon

9RrvtQN.png


You can either get it from the Discover Software Centre, or at Terminal (Konsole)

Code:
sudo apt-get -y install testdisk

After installing it, and before taking any action I would advise you to safeguard your KDE Neon install with Timeshift, also available in Discover.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
Click on Menu, type in Timeshift.


Seeing it is already installed....go to my highlighting .....**.Then just go to Menu.**...start from there

If it is not already installed, start at "**1. For Ubuntu and Linux Mint**, immediately below.

Installing Timeshift in Linux

**1. For Ubuntu and Linux Mint**

Open the terminal (ctrl+alt+T) and execute the below commands one by one....click on Enter between each one.(copy and paste the commands below into Terminal to avoid mistakes)


sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:teejee2008/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install timeshift



**Then just go to Menu....type in Timeshift....and it will be there
.**

Settings...select RSYNC

Location...select where you will store the snapshot/s (external hard drive is preferable)

Schedule...if you have a drive with plenty of space you can elect to save several snapshots.....or just keep one or two...

Users...Include All

Filters...under the + icon select both lines

Thats enough....go back to main screen of Timeshift, and select Create


grab a coffee.....5 minutes approx


Now......if something goes south while you are trying changes etc etc, all you need to do is access Timehsift, click on restore, and go grab another coffee.

Your system will be returned to whenever the snapshot you have chosen to restore, was taken.


If you have really screwed up, you can boot your pc to your thumb drive with LM 19 neon on it...access Timeshift on that .......it will have the snapshots on there for you to restore to.


Now.......you can change things without fear of losing your shirt !
 

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